Guidelines for the Summer Book Club: if you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week? Please comment, or post on your own blog and link in the comments below.
I am by nature a worrier, and one of the things I worry about is what will happen to me as I get old. I have no children, and no intention of having any; I have a husband, but we’ll be getting old at more or less the same pace, if we’re lucky. I have good friends, but no one I would expect could look after me if I got seriously ill or had my mobility permanently compromised. I live in a part of the world where winters are so harsh that even for the able-bodied, getting up and down the street on foot is a major physical challenge for a couple of months of the year. My financial affairs are only minimally in order; once it’s time for me to receive my small pension, I will not have a lot of stray cash lying around for luxuries like, say, a residence with in-house care.
I have worried a bit less about caring for my parents, as they are both still young and in good health and have partners considerably younger than them, but as the years pass and I see my friends’ parents become infirm, and as my parents themselves bring up things like funeral costs and end-of-life decisions, I find myself faced more and more with questions about how they will be cared for. I hope they will live to be very old, but I never thought much about what that would mean until I read Roz Chast’s graphic memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Chast’s parents have not just her but each other; however, they are in their nineties and are becoming less able to live without constant care. They have never been easy or reasonable people, and as they age, and as she needs to be more responsible for them, she finds herself under almost unbearable strain. On top of the medical emergencies and the deterioration of their mental capacities, the biggest burden is financial. Her parents have considerable savings and she earns a comfortable living as a long-time New Yorker cartoonist, but she is still bowled over by the costs that fall on them: for example, a place in an assisted living facility starts at $7500 a month, and once they require more regular care, the price skyrockets.
Not only does she have to worry about these things, she has to wrestle with her own guilt over her inability to be an angel. Chast sincerely wants to be the best daughter she can, but finds herself panic-stricken and resentful; time and again she steps up to the plate only to turn tail and flee back to the relative calm of her home and family, hoping that everything will be ok while she hides from the chaos. Part of this is the simple weight of the responsibilities, but part is also due to her parents themselves, especially her mother, with whom she has always had a troubled relationship. And the major complication is that Chast has tried throughout her adult life to have conversations with her parents about death and money, and they have always brushed her off with the rejoinder of the title; now, when the decisions really do need to be made, they are not being any more cooperative.
While never undercutting the painful realities of this story, Chast makes them funny. Difficult people make wonderful characters, and her parents are a handful. To illustrate their preposterous frugality (for which she is now grateful), Chast relates an incident in a department store in which her mother creates elaborate plans to buy reduced-price pantyhose in bulk; none are her size, and the colours are ridiculous, but she could sew small ones together, or cut up big ones to make smaller pairs, and dye them. Or she could make a vest for her husband out of them. None of her daughter’s sane arguments will dissuade her. The scene captures so much about their relationship and about her mother that it’s heartbreaking, but it is also fall-off-the-couch hilarious. The book is like this from one end to the other: sobering, eviscerating, and hugely entertaining.
My strongest response at the end of this book was gratitude: I live in a country with universal paid health care, my parents are not insane, and if I’m lucky, the struggles Chast illustrates here are some years away. The greatest gift this book gives, however, is a clear-eyed and searingly honest look at a trauma most of us will have to go through. The fact that Chast’s humour extends not only to her parents and to the unimaginable situation they find themselves in, but also to herself, makes this one of the best graphic memoirs I’ve ever read.
*
Also read this week: The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff. Ancient Chinese tradition dictates that when Deshi’s brother dies, he needs a corpse bride to accompany him into the afterlife. Deshi is tasked with finding one. Thus begins this beautifully illustrated and haunting graphic novel. Deshi sets off across the countryside, but soon finds that his assignment is a difficult one, and it is made no easier by the appearance of Lily, who would be a perfect corpse-bride candidate if only she were dead. The story is great; the visuals are stunning.
Abandoned this week:
- Megan Abbott’s The Fever. I was laid up for most of this past week recovering from a medical intervention on my uterus. Despite this, I did not feel averse to reading a novel about a mysterious ailment targeting sexually blossoming young women. I did, however, feel averse to reading a novel with no sense of humour. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed this book.
- Joel Dicker’s The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. One complaint that workshoppers have often made about early drafts of my fiction is that these drafts contain long swaths of uninterrupted dialogue that seem mechanical in their desire to advance the plot and characters. Joel Dicker also has this problem. It does not seem that he had helpful workshopppers, or editors, to aid him in remedying it. I was intrigued by the premise: a bestselling author crippled by writer’s block is called upon to investigate, and then write about, his mentor’s implication in the death of a teenage girl over thirty years ago. I forgave the bald dialogue and ascetic but not very elegant prose for 99 pages, reminding myself all the while that this book is a translation from the French and therefore deserves my indulgence where the language is concerned. In the end, the prospect of 539 more pages of the same defeated me.
Have you read Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, or any of the other books I attempted this week? If so, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week?
Classroom as Microcosm 
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